On April 18, 2025, Defiance returns! Fans have the responsible people at Fawkes Games to thank for securing the rights to the MMORPG shooter. Just before the comeback, many players are celebrating the freshly released gameplay trailer.
What does the new gameplay trailer show? The 3:32-minute long video shows, just before the comeback of Defiance, exclusively in-game footage, starting with some impressions from the post-apocalyptic zones of the MMORPG. After about 50 seconds, it transitions into action with shootouts in the open world, vehicles, and battles against some huge alien monsters.
Some of the scenes come from a stress test, accordingly, many characters are involved in the battles displayed. The scenes emphasize that the developers at Fawkes Games will bring the game back in its familiar “glory.” This is not an elaborate remaster or even a remake that is supposed to shine with new visuals. Here you can watch the trailer:
“I love the game and I’m so glad it’s back”
How does the community react to the video? The almost 100 comments that have gathered under the trailer so far read almost exclusively positively. Many players are looking forward to the comeback of Defiance.
- SageGaming49 explains on YouTube: “When Defiance was first released, I met a group that I am still friends with today and play with all the time. This game gave me the happiest memories, thank you Fawkes for bringing it back to life, I wish I could dive back into the game today.”
- fabsjb celebrates on YouTube: “Fantastic. I love the game and I am so glad it’s back.”
- vikingadam is also looking forward to YouTube: “I’M SO HYPED, THIS WAS MY MMO BEFORE WOW. I’ve missed it so much.”
- Odinataa remembers on YouTube: “I was about 14 when this game came out. It was so good. It will be great to play it again now as an adult and understand the mechanics.”
Did the developers say anything else? In a blog post on fawkesgames.com, a new article has appeared in which the developers explain what to expect from the return of Defiance (and what not). The main points:
- Fawkes is a small studio that now wants to bring back a game that was developed by someone else and for which there is little documentation. Much knowledge about the technology behind the game has been lost. Consequently, the comeback could be quite bumpy despite all the work already invested, do not expect miracles.
- The plan is to support Defiance over a long period. Since there is no publisher behind the studio, there is no financial pressure – one does not have to maximize profits. At the same time, however, there is also no external investor covering salaries and other costs.
- Defiance already contains numerous updates and content from several years. Nevertheless, they want to make balancing adjustments if necessary, improve drops, and add fresh content like story expansions, regions, Arkfalls, weapons, or vehicles.
- Since it is still unclear whether Fawkes can make money with Defiance, only a small team is currently working on the game to maintain the service, fix problems, and make minor adjustments. When money comes in, they plan to expand the team and tackle the more elaborate goals.
- Based on player feedback, they have removed various items from the in-game shop that had been criticized in the original. There will be no items in the shop that affect the game experience. Furthermore, the Free2Play access remains.
- For the future, paid cosmetics, inventory and character expansions, seasonal items, XP boosts, and a patron system are planned for monetization.
- Defiance is also expected to appear on Steam in the coming weeks. A console version will only be a topic once the PC version has established itself.
- The developers want to combine the best of Defiance 2013 and Defiance 2050. The first step: Defiance 2013 will soon receive 64-bit servers. Which features from 2050 will still land in 2013 will be decided together with the community.
What else do I need to know about Defiance? When Trion Worlds released Defiance in April 2013, the developers had almost a revolutionary plan: the MMO was supposed to be in a constant interaction with the eponymous TV series. The events shown on the pay TV channel SyFy were supposed to first affect the game world of the MMO.
The second step was to have the community’s progress and actions affect the events of the second season of the series. However, a broadcast on SyFy significantly limited the target audience. Many players of Defiance had not seen a single episode of the series at the launch of the MMO.
Defiance itself was unfortunately only a mediocre MMO shooter that initially suffered from AI problems, technical issues, generic missions, and graphic recycling. Added to this was the relatively low scope upon release.
After the third season, the series was already canceled. The MMO received a modified version called Defiance 2050 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One in July 2018. In the meantime, the rights to the game were acquired by Gamigo. On April 29, 2021, the servers of both versions went offline forever.
Fun Fact: In the meantime, another MMO shooter, namely Destiny, managed to give the number of players of Defiance a real boost. Scott Hartsman, then CEO of Trion Worlds, explained it this way:
“I am glad that Destiny is out. It has inspired more people to play an online MMO shooter on console. And the fact that more people are looking for something like this has had a fantastic impact on Defiance.”
Defiance was released more than a year before Destiny, which was released on September 9, 2014, and was therefore basically Destiny before there was proper Destiny (just without the fantastic gunplay for which Bungie has been known for many years). You can read more about it here: Destiny boosts the free-to-play MMO shooter Defiance on PS3 and Xbox 360
